Suffering from the lingering image of a money-laundering husband of a world-famous political icon, Benazir Bhutto, former president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari is fast emerging as an intellectual patriarch of Pakistani politics.

We live within the same borders as these unlucky people, perhaps even a few kilometers away from their hell on earth, but as we cross over to the better half of our country, we easily forget the turmoil our personalized war on terror has caused to millions.

Given these grave challenges, Pakistan's upcoming parliamentary elections constitute a crucial test for its fragile democracy. Will the country's new government be able to address the rapidly deteriorating state of affairs in the country?

A smaller percentage of us -- less than 1 percent -- serves in the military in this all-volunteer era of ours and, on the face of it, Washington's constant warring in distant lands seems barely to touch the lives of most Americans.

After the news broke that Pakistan's Supreme Court had ousted Prime Minister Gilani, the U.S. news media went into overdrive. Fears abounded of worst-case scenarios. In fact, there's little reason to assume any of these scenarios will come to pass.

No matter how attractive or sought after a job can be, it is never easy taking on a role that immediately requires damage control on multiple fronts. By becoming the new Director General of Pakistan's notorious intelligence agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence.